


room to grow

by sicsempertyrannis



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24614332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sicsempertyrannis/pseuds/sicsempertyrannis
Summary: Months after they escape the plantation, Thomas wakes before James and thinks about how much they've changed.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Comments: 9
Kudos: 61





	room to grow

The morning sun still wasn’t quite high enough to reach James and Thomas’ bed, the rays stopping just before the bedframe. Thomas, in his half-awakened state, reached out and brushed his fingers along the floor, hoping to catch some of their light.

James was asleep on his back next to him, the quiet breaths and warmth the only indication that someone was there at all. He had always been a still sleeper, Navy training tended to do that to a man, but it had been different since they escaped the plantation. James slept like he hadn’t for years, so deeply it was almost impossible to wake him. Not that Thomas tried, he knew his lover deserved it.

Retreating his hand, Thomas turned over to face James. A rush started in his chest, like petals unfurling at dawn. They had found each other again four months ago, and had only spent three months of that away from the plantation. Every meal they took, every glance they shared, was an act of utter devotion knowing that for so long they had given up on seeing the other again.

Although Thomas would recognize James at the ends of the earth, there were times when he’d be caught off-guard by exactly how much they’d both changed. In their home, they’d developed a rhythm and each minor stutter—James revealing he no longer liked this tea, Thomas admitting he could no longer stand sleeping in—could leave him feeling off-kilter for the rest of the day. Logically, Thomas knew ten years were a lot of time for change, but knowing it and experiencing it was as different as sea and sky.

_Three months. Feels like twice as long._ Yet sometimes, Thomas would try and reach back into those ten lonely years, and he could hardly believe he had suffered through them. He bore all the physical and mental markers, but the memories were untouchable and distant in his mind.

It’s not that time on the plantation passed quickly—the opposite, in fact, too many memories of just staring at the sun and willing it to move—but that it felt like another life. Thomas spent his years there on a tight schedule: waking at the first rays of dawn, working the fields with only a minor lunch break, then having an hour of limited recreational time before being locked in the barracks with the other men. When he looked at his hands, Thomas saw the scars, but his mind had always been somewhere else while he was earning them. Somewhere cloudy and cold, with red hair tickling his face.

For the sake of the story, Thomas wished he could say he had sensed that day that James was coming. A tightness in his gut. A persistent feeling that the world was holding its breath. A voice whispering in his ear to _turn around_. Grateful as he was, the only reason Thomas had turned when he did was because he wanted to know what the guards were staring at. When he saw James… the world didn’t have the language for how he felt when he saw James.

Thomas leaned forward, resting his head on James’ shoulder and his hand just over James’ heart. His lover sighed, but didn’t wake, and Thomas found a smile creeping across his face. He closed his eyes, feeling the way their hearts beat in sync. Thomas had spent a decade mourning James’ death, and now he was ready to spend the rest of his life celebrating that he was wrong.

Yes, they spent ten years apart, life forcing them away from each other with every breath. Time stretched endlessly into the future, chances waiting to be taken and promises waiting to be fulfilled. Thomas and James had room to grow back into each other, like trees with roots so entangled they couldn’t help but become one.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments! I'm appreciative of literally anything.


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